{"id":244794,"date":"2012-01-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-06T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/new-kid-on-the-block\/"},"modified":"2012-01-06T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-01-06T08:00:00","slug":"new-kid-on-the-block","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/new-kid-on-the-block\/","title":{"rendered":"New kid on the block"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Diego Musical Theater\u2019s move to North Park Theatre fuels venue\u2019s plans for reorganization<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Martin Jones Westlin | SDUN Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n

The North Park Theatre, located at 2891 University Ave., was the neighborhood\u2019s flagship facility when it opened in 1929 as a movie house and vaudeville venue, and played a similar role when it reopened as the Stephen and Mary Birch North Park Theatre in 2005.<\/p>\n

A recession would make quick work of the reopening, and in October 2011 Lyric Opera San Diego, the building\u2019s current owner, put the facility up for sale, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, laid off two-thirds of its staff and canceled the remainder of its season. <\/p>\n

However, the San Diego Musical Theatre\u2019s (SDMT) decision to assume tenancy at the facility provides a step towards reorganization for both groups.<\/p>\n

The same recession also forced SDMT to eliminate some of its schedule, but to this point, it has produced 11 different shows, including \u201cBye Bye Birdie\u201d and \u201cDreamgirls.\u201d Many took place at the former East County Performing Arts Center and, recently, at downtown\u2019s Lyceum Stage, home of San Diego Repertory Theatre. <\/p>\n

SDMT co-founder Gary Lewis said the North Park Theater offers the company a few assets the Lyceum cannot.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Rep doesn\u2019t have a fly [space] and it doesn\u2019t have an orchestra pit,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cWith the type of musicals that we do, [those things are] very advantageous. We wanted to do large musicals, things that were difficult to do at the Lyceum. This offers us a greater opportunity to expand our musicals. The ones we had set up were kind of in tune with the Rep [infrastructure], so I\u2019m not so sure that our first few shows we\u2019re going to have [at the North Park] are bigger. We want to get back into the bigger ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 23,000-square-foot North Park Theater seats about 730, compared to the Lyceum\u2019s approximate 500.<\/p>\n

SDMT, a nonprofit arts organization, was founded in 2006. Before staging shows at the Lyceum Stage and East County Performing Arts Center, the company debuted \u201cThe Full Monty\u201d at the North Park Theatre. \u201cThe Full Monty\u201d was nominated for nine Tony Awards in 2001 and has played in 18 countries from South Korea to South Africa, exactly the pedigree that piques Lewis\u2019s interest.<\/p>\n

SDMT will present \u201cThe Marvelous Wonderettes\u201d Feb. 10 to 26 as the first entry in its 2012 season at the North Park Theatre, to be followed by \u201cRent\u201d and \u201cFootloose.\u201d<\/p>\n

With SDMT\u2019s move, the recessionary cloud that obscured the facility may have provided its own silver lining. Lyric Opera San Diego filed for bankruptcy protection not long after SDMT had approached Joe Altbaum, North Park Theatre executive director, about renting the space.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t in a position to provide them dates for their productions [then],\u201d Altbaum said. \u201cAs things started to change and Lyric Opera San Diego had made the decision to no longer produce shows, we had some openings on our calendar. I\u2019ve known the Lewises for a few years and gave them a call to see if they were still interested in coming to the theater to do their productions. That\u2019s where the dialogue once again began.\u201d SDMT is co-produced by Gary and Erin Lewis. <\/p>\n

Altbaum continued, \u201cThe Lewises are well-known people in the community. They have a solid organization. The Rep space is a beautiful space, [and] I think [SDMT was] happy at the Rep, but as things became available, they probably were thinking a little bit bigger on the scale of shows they\u2019d like to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Altbaum declined to state the details of SDMT\u2019s rental agreement.<\/p>\n

In a Lyric Opera statement announcing Altbaum as the new executive director of the Theatre released Nov. 7, 2011, board president Roberto Cueva said, \u201cWe are moving forward in a bold new direction with how the theater operates. As such, we needed less performance company and artistic direction and more venue management. [Altbaum\u2019s] past successes in the live entertainment industry were a perfect match for where we wanted to evolve our operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lyric Opera\u2019s board remains the sole manager of the North Park Theatre\u2019s affairs; SDMT is the facility\u2019s anchor tenant and has not assumed control of the building. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing allows Lyric Opera to place the building up for sale for $5 million. The organization spent approximately $8 million to refurbish the Theater. Altbaum said he believes he has an answer to help fill in the price difference. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are able to rent dates out,\u201d Altbaum said, \u201cand we have really stepped up our game-plan on renting the facility as much as we possibly can, concentrating on other nonprofits who need a space for graduations, comedy events [or] one-night concerts. Many of these things have happened in the past, but we\u2019ve really made it our goal to keep this facility constantly busy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing through a Chapter 11,\u201d Altbaum added, \u201cyou have to keep all your options open. You cannot close your mind to any option. If one option is to have someone else purchase the building and continue to use it as a venue, that is an option they must keep open. We\u2019re doing very well on creating a plan to stay alive, but we\u2019re also at the mercy of the court and what they decide is the best course of action for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information on Lyric Opera San Diego, visit lyricoperasandiego.org or SDMT\u2019s website sdmt.org.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

San Diego Musical Theater\u2019s move to North Park Theatre fuels venue\u2019s plans for reorganization By Martin Jones Westlin | SDUN Reporter The North Park Theatre, located at 2891 University Ave., was the neighborhood\u2019s flagship facility when it opened in 1929 as a movie house and vaudeville venue, and played a similar role when it reopened […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":244793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"New kid on the block","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11551,11593,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-news","category-no-images","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}